“BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis, who was ousted from the co-CEO role about a year ago, will be retiring from his current position on the board effective May 1,” Shara Tibken reports for CNET. “After giving up the co-CEO position, Lazardis has served as vice chair and a director of BlackBerry. Last week, he launched a $100 million fund, Quantum Valley Investments, to work on commercial applications for breakthroughs in quantum science.”

Tibken reports, “During Lazaridis’ last year as co-CEO and co-chairman, BlackBerry (then named Research in Motion) suffered a sharp slowdown in growth as its phones failed to make a dent in the smartphone market dominated by Apple and Samsung. And BlackBerry’s attempt to breach the tablet market with the PlayBook stumbled early. If that wasn’t enough, BlackBerry also delayed the release of new products and suffered a major global service outage, the worst in the company’s history, in October of 2011. Current CEO Thorsten Heins stepped in to replace the co-CEOs, while Lazaridis moved to the vice chairman role.”

I seriously think that the other ex-half-CEO (Jim Bazblahblah-whatever-his-name-is) is a hard-core coke-head. Listen to some of his rambling interviews. His answers make absolutely no sense. They make Ballmy seem half-way coherent.